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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23283133">Fox &amp; The Dragon</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/MercySewerPyro/pseuds/MercySewerPyro'>MercySewerPyro</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Here There Be Dragons [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, CT-27-5555 | Fives | ARC-5555 Lives, Dragons, Fix-It, Gen, Trans Character, should I start tagging these original work?</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-03-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 10:08:40</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,588</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23283133</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/MercySewerPyro/pseuds/MercySewerPyro</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Dragons are myths, just fiction from legends long dead. So what does a myth want with Commander Fox?</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>CC-1010 | Fox &amp; Original Character</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Here There Be Dragons [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1674430</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>76</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Fox &amp; The Dragon</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Fox had dealt with a lot in his time as Commander of the Courscant Guard. Angry senators, low-life thugs, bounty hunters, crime lords, citizens unhappy with the war… And all the paperwork that came with it.</p><p> </p><p>But the dragon was a new one.</p><p> </p><p>The first time he’d seen it, he’d been on an evening walk to clear his head. The shadows had moved, and he had raised his blaster in an instant, swerving around to protect himself- Only for the end of his rifle to bump up against the snout of something so large it barely fit on the walkway, heavily armoured and with a wingspan large enough to block out the night sky. It had grinned at him, all sharp teeth, and he had nearly fired right then and there.</p><p> </p><p>But it had sat back on its armoured haunches, five of its six legs folding underneath it, and had just picked at its teeth with a claw like a sword. Told him <em> in a sibling’s voice </em> it was rude to point a blaster at a guest.</p><p> </p><p>At the time, he’d internally thanked his years of training for keeping him from dropping his blaster to the ground right then and there and running all the way back to the barracks.</p><p> </p><p>Instead he shoved down his fear and did all he could think to do: he asked it questions, demanded answers. The damn thing only responded by being really kriffing cryptic.</p><p> </p><p>“Who are you?”</p><p> </p><p>“Just a friend. Thought I’d pop in.” It grinned again, slow and easy, as if this was merely a chat over Kenobi’s tea and not over a blaster.</p><p> </p><p>“You’ll have to excuse me for not believing you.”</p><p> </p><p>“Doesn’t matter to me if you don’t believe me or not, Commander Fox. I am needed here, just as you are.”</p><p> </p><p>The conversation hadn’t been long- But it’d <em>all</em> been like that, this beast with the brother’s voice knowing things he hadn’t even told it. And now he saw the kriffing thing everywhere.</p><p> </p><p>And it always caught him alone. At first, he’d thought it was a hallucination, a trick of his over-stressed mind (and there had been so many things to be stressed about lately). After all, dragons were myths, and even if every myth had a grain of truth, all of the research Fox had done never described a dragon like <em> this. </em> But that had all stopped when he had called it (<em>her</em>) an it to her face, and she had smacked him to the side for misgendering her.</p><p> </p><p>The bruises he still sported after that - and their medic’s very real exasperation over them - were enough to convince him that she was, in fact, real. Though that didn’t explain anything else. Like how she always knew what was going to happen before he did, how she could get in and out of places without being seen by anyone else. Like why she had a sibling’s voice.</p><p> </p><p>But she had told him why she was there, coming to him instead of any of his siblings. Of course, it was still as confusing as ever.</p><p> </p><p>“See, I <em> like </em> you, Fox. I like a lot of my siblings still here. And you’re the lynch pin, aren’t you? You’re at the heart. And so I come to you.”</p><p> </p><p>“The heart of <em> what?” </em></p><p> </p><p>“The heart. It’ll make sense, when things start to happen.”</p><p> </p><p>Thing is, things did start to happen. The spaces in his memory were proof enough of that, lost time he couldn’t find again. He wasn’t the only one, either - all of his guards seemed to be losing time here and there, but while they didn’t notice <em> Fox did </em> - but he seemed to be experiencing it the most. There were plots to frame neutral Senators, thugs beating up those who wouldn’t vote on specific bills- All this and more slipped through Fox’s grasp, out of his control. He was supposed to be <em> protecting </em> these people, but he couldn’t seem to handle even a small part of it.</p><p> </p><p>Once, he had asked her for help. She was a <em> dragon, </em> couldn’t she do something?</p><p> </p><p>But she had smiled, soft as if she was his friend (maybe at this point she was), and told him, “It’s not my place. It’s yours. You’re at the heart, but what does <em> your </em> heart tell you to do? You are a fox, aren't you? Cunning trickster, sniff out your own path.”</p><p> </p><p>“That doesn’t tell me <em> anything!” </em>And he wasn’t a trickster; he followed the rules, and set his own. Didn’t he?</p><p> </p><p>“It tells you everything, Commander. Take your common sense and use it.” Her smile had grown into that knife-sharp grin, and she had continued, “But you get a prize for getting this far.”</p><p> </p><p>He'd stopped, blinking in surprise at this dragon. A prize? “What?”</p><p> </p><p>“Ladon. My name is Ladon. And you’re very special for catching my attention.”</p><p> </p><p>A name. All this time, he hadn’t even known her name. It gave him a new angle for his research anyway, and he managed to convince even the Jedi librarian to let him in and peruse their files.</p><p> </p><p>It took him only a little farther than last time, but that was enough.</p><p> </p><p>Ladon led to Voidborn. Whispers of teeth and claws and the never-ending dark (but not Dark), a name scattered in a legend of a long-dead people.</p><p> </p><p>And a description of armour, sounding far too close to a clone’s for Fox’s comfort.</p><p> </p><p>Another dead end, but one that left Fox uneasy.</p><p> </p><p>But he couldn’t shake the feeling she really <em> was </em> on his side, that her voice was not an illusion. And so, he mimicked his namesake, and set to looking and listening. He already had his access to the Jedi Temple’s archives, and so he sniffed out ways of shielding his mind, strengthening it; he had training to resist a Jedi’s prying, but only the basics, the simplest of shields. After all, most Jedi got the hint. The lost time didn’t.</p><p> </p><p>A book was left on his doorstep, talking about how to train the willpower, to resist suggestion. Perhaps Ladon was not as unable to help as she’d told him; perhaps she just couldn’t help him directly. For the most part, he was on his own. But that was alright. He was a clone, he was very good at learning things. And so he learned.</p><p> </p><p>And then he didn’t lose time.</p><p> </p><p>Instead, when the words snuck into his brain, when the Darkness spoke directly to him, he found that the time lost was because his <em> body </em> was lost. Marching to a beat he couldn’t resist (<em>not yet, </em> Ladon’s voice whispered into his mind) as he carried out the Chancellor’s wishes.</p><p> </p><p>The Chancellor. Telling him to turn a blind eye to the crimes under their nose. Telling him to authorize things Fox would <em> never, </em> not even for the Chancellor. Making Fox shut up and stand straight, a prisoner in his own body, as Palpatine gloated over his victories over those pathetic Jedi. All the while, ‘<em>good soldiers follow orders</em>’, playing over and over and over in Fox’s brain until he thought he might go insane.</p><p> </p><p>Palpatine, Chancellor fucking Palpatine, was the Sith Lord they’d been chasing ghosts of all this time.</p><p> </p><p>When Ladon came again, Fox cried. He screamed his anger out at her - “Why couldn’t you <em> tell me, </em> why couldn’t you <b> <em>help!?”</em> </b> - and she curled around him, a warm bulk for him to cling to. The Supreme Chancellor had betrayed them all, and she had said <em> nothing. </em></p><p> </p><p>But now she whispered to him, so softly, “Too much could break things, and a dragon draws more attention than you think. You know the truth. Start planning for it.”</p><p> </p><p>And then she had marked his armour. A small scratch, three sharp-bumps, like a dragon’s head and wings from overhead. He’d thought a little more clearly after that. Not enough to resist the orders, not <em> initially. </em>But it would be enough to build the foundation on.</p><p> </p><p>Because of that, because of the <em> clarity, </em> he was starting to believe those legends, even if it would be impossible. Even if she’d have to be thousands of years old, and the feeling in his gut she <em> was </em> a sibling would contradict it.</p><p> </p><p>Fox was biding his time. He couldn’t do this alone, but without knowing how Sidious was pulling his and his siblings’ strings, he was on his own. It was one Fox against the wolves. Ladon wouldn’t come to his aid, but he was smarter, and he had hope.</p><p> </p><p>The galaxy may have been falling apart around them all, but for the first time since he’d arrived on Courscant, Fox finally saw clearly. He <em> was </em> at the heart. And only he had the power to stop it.</p><p> </p><p>And so, when the orders screaming in his brain told him to fire on a sibling, to gun down an ARC trooper that <em> seemed </em> so unhinged? When all of that common sense told him that something was deeply, terrible wrong with this picture? He drew on the training he had been putting himself through, and concentrated on the words of one coiling, six-legged dark to drown out the words of the one raging in his mind. Ladon was counting on him. They were all counting on him.</p><p> </p><p>And Sidious would pay for trying to make him silence a brother.</p><p> </p><p>“Troopers, stand down.” Taking off his helmet, slow and careful, Fox smiled with the sharpness of a dragon’s teeth, a challenge to any who would dare contradict him. “I want to hear what Fives has to say.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I told myself I wasn't going to post another of these - I have no intention of explaining what the dragons ARE after all - but this came to mind and got spat out into a word doc, so I guess I'm making these anyway.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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